Female Igbo Architect who is all about inspiring confidence and has an opinion about everything.

Each time I make up my mind to finally put up a post on this blog for the first time in a long while, something happens and I end up not doing it. I set up my PC, put on my hot-spot, connect my system, go to wordpress.com, log in, open a new post page, set my fingers over the keyboard and then…nothing.

Nothing in the sense that a whole lot has gone on with me and all these things have lifted me and placed me in a corner. in this corner, I have gained a quiet perspective to life. I just sit around in this corner and I am calm, reluctant and I oddly smile more than I used to.

You see, towards the end of last year I went through what I would call am emotional hurricane and to be honest with you all, I cannot even pinpoint what exactly triggered it but I woke up one morning and told myself: “you are not okay”.

As a final year student in any tertiary institution, there are a lot of fears that you may have. Some of which may include your supervisor’s red pen (my greatest fear), the printer at the cyber cafe malfunctioning, lack of resource materials and finally, loosing your thesis file on your personal computer. Infact, the last one should be the greatest fear of all.

When I wrote the thesis for my undergraduate programme, I had the scare of my life. I had written my thesis up-to chapter 4 and it was approved by my supervisor up till that level. One day, when I wanted to make some corrections on it, the file suddenly became inaccessible. I couldn’t access over 80 pages of months of research (of course you know I mean google. God bless google) and I felt like dying. I tried everything I could but to no avail. The file was lost and I had no back up so I had to start afresh.

This hasn’t only happened to me, it has happened to many other students in different ways. I know a friend who had an 8 a.m meeting with his supervisor to submit Chapter 1-3 and his laptop crashed by 4 a.m and just like me, he had no backup elsewhere and his hard drive was damaged. I advised him to go and ask his village people some questions lol. On a serious note though, why does this keep happening even after we see it happen to other people. I’ll tell you:

I walked over to my bedside and gradually lay down face up as advised by the nurses. I looked at my mum who lay fast asleep by my right and instantly froze.

“No, no, no, not again”

“Shhhhh! Sit down. Be quick!” he said in a loud whisper as he pointed the gun at my mother’s head.

“Addy, sit down please. Just sit down.” my mum pleaded in a whisper with her eyes shut. When did she wake up? When did he enter the room? I was shaking so hard both from cold and fear. I slowly walked towards my bed dragging my squeaky drip stand along. I got to the bed and sat down quietly, trying hard in vain to be calm.

“It seems I did not hit you hard enough. You’re very lucky we were in a hurry.” he said.

Then it came to me: I knew him. He was the one with the gun pointed at my face. I remember being dragged out from under the church pew and I remember staring at this same face I was staring at now before I suddenly blacked out.

“I heard you were alive and decided to pay the only survivor a visit with a warning.” he said pressing the gun harder into my mother’s head. “You are only alive because we don’t want media attention. Speak to no one about whatever you feel you saw, or heard. If you do, I will kill every member of your family, let you suffer and then kill you. Do you understand? Do you understand?!” he asked impatiently.

“Addy answer him nau” my mum whispered with her eyes still shut.

“Shut up!” he said, slapping my mum from behind.

“I’ve heard you! I have heard you!!” I cried out. On hearing this, he left the room. Few minutes later the nurse rushed in.

I struggled with the volume button and finally shut it off and I looked up to a nozzle in between my eyes.

“She hasn’t still woken up?” a female voice in my head said.

I slowly opened my eyes and shut them immediately from too much light and slowly opened them again, blinking to adjust to the light. I was lying down face up in a room. I looked around, trying to recognize my environment until my nose picked up a familiar scent. The atmosphere was filled with a strong antiseptic scent that made me sick to the stomach everytime I perceived it. I was in a hospital. What am I doing in a hospital? I thought as I sprang up to a sitting position.

“Mba mba mba!! Doctor said you should lie down until your drip finishes!” said someone beside me.

“Mummy! What am I doing here?! What happened?!! Where am I?” I asked in confusion.

“You don’t remember? Hian. You are in NAUTH my daughter. Thank God for your life.” My mum said as she guided me to a lying position.

“Oraifite! Ozubulu!! Oraifite!! Ozubulu!!! Last bus!” the conductor’s voice echoed in my head as I struggled to find 200 naira note to give the okada man for a ride that wasn’t even worth 100 naira. He obviously took advantage of my situation and I didn’t care. I had to go home. School had become very stressful and this weekend was the only opportunity I had to go home, relax and eat good food before preparing for my final defense.

I finally located the money, gave it to him and dashed towards the bus.

“Space o ka di?” I asked hopefully.

“Banye na azu!” the conductor yelled as he continued looking for passengers.

When I was finally settled at the back, I slowly heaved a sigh of relief and quickly texted my mother saying that I was on my way.

I finally arrived Amakwa about thirty minutes later and the reception at home was wonderful. My sisters were all home for the holidays except on who was currently writing her semester exams. My kid brother kept hovering around me asking for the buscuits I promised to buy for him and I managed to escape the question till he fell asleep.

Dinner that night was amazing. My mother’s ofe onugbu with garri never disappointed me. After dinner, I lay back on the cushion in the sitting room, while picking my teeth and enjoying my favorite show on FOOD TV when my mother strolled into the sitting room with an amebo look on her face so I sat up in expectation.

“Guys! you can go home. Professor no dey come!” the course rep said from the front of the class.
At this announcement, there was an uproar of excitement and we all started trooping out of the class headed to our various hostels. This was supposed to be good news for me because I watched movies till 3 a.m last night and needed to get some sleep. Also, there was a show on FOX LIFE that I usually missed because of this particular lecture that was cancelled. However, I was not happy. Infact, I was very angry and my friend Jide noticed.
“Oga wetin dey work you. You just keep face like shit since.” he said nudging me
“Guy abeg lemme. Girls just dey very annoying” I spat out
“Ah ah hehehe, wetin happen?” he asked
“No be that stupid girl? that b*tch” I replied
“haba, that thing still dey pain you?” he asked again
I’m sure you must be wondering what I was angry about. Let me tell you

Hello everyone and welcome to the month of July! Whoop whooop!! I hope we have all been good to ourselves. That’s great!

You can’t wait for the story ba? See your teeth. 😂 Amebo.

I’m not talking again 😯

Just kidding! Let’s wait for these chickens to pass first. 🕒

🐓🐔🐓🐓🐔🐔🐔🐔🐓🐓🐔🐔🐔🐔🐓🐓🐓

Alright!

Yesterday while I was scrolling through my timeline, I came across a post by a girl named Oma. She’s a blogger and talks about everything that deserves an opinion on her blog. She had shared one of her posts and the title suggested that women were their own problem. The post in summary was a story about how she mentioned to her mother that she was tired of the traffic and needed to get herself a car. Her mother yelled at her and asked her if she even wanted to get married at all because when she gets a car it would scare away suitors and she’ll most probably end up alone and sad.

😕

A friend of mine also shared a story of how she was on a bus conversing in igbo with her friend and was interrupted by the stranger sitting next to her. The stranger scolded her for sounding too “igbotic” and adviced her to speak more English so that she could sound more lady-like and attract suitors. This stranger was a woman.

😰

The famous Nigerian Architect and radio host, Jumoke Adenowo in an interview for a women’s show explained how dreams have been killed, crushed and shattered because mothers and women tell their daughters and friends that: shebi it’s Garri that they will do last last, just study your nuclear physics and get married.

😮

Everyday on social media and in random discussions, the issue of the discrimination against humans because they are female come up. I sit back and realise that the people who advocate for their freedom do this mostly before the ones who discriminate. But amongst themselves, they feel less.

Women! We might be our own problem!
We will not get the treatment and recognition we deserve by lip service, we get it by working on ourselves and helping ourselves. But no! We have turned ourselves into competitors for a negligible price. Everyday there is a constant struggle for a meal ticket that we can afford. We smile to win, we speak to admonish and we dress to slay. Everything we do is just so that Justine will not do it better than we have done it.

I envy men sometimes because even in diversity, there is a sense of community, understanding and respect they have for their counterparts. Correct me if I’m wrong. With us? It’s always a competition. We see ourselves as less and teach our daughters to be less. It’s an endless cycle that continuously mass produces a set of brain washed women who fight for nothing.

We should owe our daughters, sisters and friends the responsibility to empower ourselves because in so doing, we empower them too. We owe them belief in ourselves and we owe them success.

Stop seeing the woman next to you as a competitor and start seeing her as a sister. We are in no competition because at the end of the day, we all die and the things we kill ourselves over will perish.

Help the lady next to you by first helping yourself. Success and happiness is not gender selective. Stop the ill-advicing, the envy, the hate, the fighting, the scowls and the gossip. Stop basing your happiness in what Obinna thinks or what Chidimma says. Just be a woman.

This is why I have stopped advocating for gender equality and this is why I have not identified with feminism because I don’t know who to fight for or speak for. We must first unite before deciding to fight.

Let us empower ourselves and in so doing, we might even prove our worth without even trying.

She obviously loved James with all her heart and couldn’t wait to get married to him but the uncertainties of life wouldn’t let her mind rest. Something inside her head kept telling her that maybe her parents had a point.

It was Friday finally and the week actually ended better than it started. Mr. Femi had been going for site jobs for the whole week so there was no yelling or insulting in the office and her mum hadn’t called her again. At around 12 o’ clock, Onyinye was about to step out of the office for lunch when her phone rang and she checked her phone screen and it read “Tari the b*tch”. She picked,

“Tari the bitch!”

“Onyinye the whore!”

The two bestfriends greeted themselves in their usual manner and laughed their heads off for about three seconds. Onyinye met Tari two years ago during her NYSC camp at Delta state and ever since they haven’t let go of each other.

​There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens

Ecclesiastes 3 vs 1

Today in class, a few of us were picking on a colleague. Seriously! I’m not a bully though but it was just us having fun and trying to ease of the stress from school work. The issue with this classmate was that he had just refused to talk to girls and mingle. We hardly see him with any female friends and as the good course mates that we are *adjusts tie and collar*, we decided to help out of concern. hahaha.

Anyways, we kept teasing him and playfully giving him suggestions to his “situation” as we liked to call it until one of us said something:
“There is time for everything”

Whatever is has already been,

and what will be has been before;

and God will call the past to account.

Ecclesiastes 3 vs 15

This and recent happenings in my life have shown me the value of time and how it works. To every second, minute, and hour, a scene has been assigned. The scenes will only play out when they are supposed to and the truth about the matter is that you actually cannot do anything about this particular fact. This is why patience indeed is a virtue.

You and I have a list of things that we want for people and for ourselves that we recite to as often as possible but the truth is that if these things are not written down in the scripts and scrolls of time, they cannot happen except God allows it.
“Fate confirms fate”
If it is written that you are supposed to crawl and you try hard to walk, you’ll get hurt and still end up crawling. It’s difficult not to be hasty about things especially when you already have it all planned out in your head and you have invested alot in these things. I understand. But the truth is that, whatever is has already been and what will be, has been before. Let things play out.

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

Ecclesiastes 3 vs 12-14

Whatever you feel you want might not be what you need. Beating the gun will only delay your race. Relax, and take things as they come. It might annoy you at some point. Sometimes you may cry, other times you may frown ans some other times you may be disappointed but these disappointments and tears have already been before they were. Sometimes delays are just recesses to give you time to learn a lesson or to give you time to avoid a mistake or a mishap.

So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Ecclesiastes 3 vs 22

This is all I have for us today. I’m really sorry for the long silence, school work is overwhelming right now and I promise I will get back to the table once things get clearer.

Hello people! I’m sorry I have not been talking about my hair for a long while now. I have been busy trying to manage time. The only way I have been keeping other parts of this blog going is by writing anytime I’m free. Unfortunately, I wasn’t giving much time to my Natural Hair Journey and I feel guilty.

Anyways, remember I told you that this year I was going to change things up a little by trying out branded products? I have always been a DIY person but this year I decided to create a branded regimen. My DIY regimen remains efficient but variety is the spice of life no?

I am going to share with you my wash day experience with a product I bought on sizelle.com (you should check them out). I saw it on naijagirlnextdoor.com. She did a review on this product and she bought it on sale too from sizzelle. I quickly rushed to the site and luckily for me, it was still on sale so I ordered for one. I got it a few days later but couldn’t use it immediately because I was on a protective style.

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About Me

Kedu? My name Ifeoma, I am Igbo and I am an Architect (well in-view). Here, I like to talk about everything that has to do with cultivating confidence and esteem in everyone especially young people like me. These include, articles, stories, poems and reviews.
I also share on here, the experiences I have during the Natural Hair Journey I started on the 3rd of October, 2015.
I hope I touch your life as you go through my blog and I also hope that through you, I will touch many more. Thanks alot!